Down with the Sickness
by GothicCheshire
Summary: Being ill is always awful. Being ill when you're an alien, and have a completely different physiology to a human, is even worse.


_Here we go folks, just a little way to let you know that I AM still alive, and I will be updating my one story shortly. Enjoy! Uncreative title, I know, but hey, it works..._

...

Roxanne Ritchi walked into the lair of her boyfriend and supervillain-turned-hero with a bounce in her step and a small smile on her mouth. She had been awfully sick for a few days and the first day she finally had beaten it had also been a day she had off, and nothing would stop her from taking it. Minion grinned at her widely as she entered, a piranha toothed smile in a truly friendly face. She smiled at him in return and Minion gestured her over to the area of the lair which was designated as the tv viewing room.

Minion was very happy to see her, and it was obvious, but there was something else in the grin that she couldn't quite identify. They had not heard from her in a while, and the visit would be enough to remove Megamind from the funk he had managed to land himself in. That was enough for Minion.

She found the blue-skinned alien slumped on his black leather sofa, channel changer in one hand, large monitor screen in front of him and a glazed expression on his face. The moment the door opened Megamind let out a sigh and waved his hand lazily, "Please Minion, I asked you before, please, leave me alone to my melan-colly…"

"It's _melancholy_, and why would I do that when I can probably bring you out of it? Or don't you want to see me?" Roxanne watched with a soft smile as the blue body stiffened, the oversized head turning to look at her with wide eyes and an open mouth. To her worry and slight confusion the look slowly turned wary; there was no expected light in his eyes, no happiness, nothing but uneasiness.

"Roxanne? But I thought…" He faltered for words and pushed himself out of the seat, powering off the screen and looking at her in amazement, disbelief shining in his eyes. "I thought you had left…"

The words made Ritchi's blue eyes widen, shock apparent. "What? No, no, no! I was sick, that was all. Honestly. I wouldn't leave you, never." Her voice was firm, realizing with a kind of belated irritation at herself that that would have been how Megamind would have viewed her disappearance. He was still insecure about himself, let alone her and their relationship together.

The green eyes searched hers for the truth, flitting back and forth with a kind of hesitant uncertainty, and then he finally grinned. Roxanne smiled at him in return and pulled him to her in a tight hug that turned to a brief kiss on the lips. "You should know better than that…" she told him quietly and he gave her a hesitant shrug. They spent the rest of the day catching up and laughing, their hands always intertwined. It was a good day.  
…..

Two days later Roxanne was nearly frantic with worry. Minion had called her on Megamind's cell phone, his words brief and to the point: Megamind was sick, and it was bad. Life-threatening bad.

She ran into the lair with panic as her main drive, nearly running into Minion who was on his way out. He had an alien cradled in his arms, but there was no way that that could be Megamind, no possible way. There were so many things which were wrong with the picture that she could barely cognate it. He was dressed in his pajamas, which he would have never gone out in public with had his life depended on it (to her knowledge), and he was a sickly gray color, not the blue she knew. Then the thing which struck her as so wrong came to her.

He wasn't moving. There was no tick of movement, no twitch or flail, he barely reacted to her presence. Minion was running for the invisible car, and she shouted at him to wait, jumping into it with him, the sick alien laid down in the backseat, Roxanne maneuvering his head to rest on her lap. The car ride was silent until Megamind turned his head to the side and dry heaved. Roxanne's eyes widened.

Minion comforted his boss from his spot in the front, words nearly stumbling over each other in his haste to make his charge remain calm. Roxanne began rubbing and massaging whatever part of him she could reach, adding tactile comfort to the never-ending stream of words which left her lips, Minion's own twining with hers to create a meaningless mesh of desperate comfort.

They pulled up to the hospital, Minion practically throwing the door off its hinges in his haste to get it open, startling several passerby, and leaped out of the vehicle. He picked his charge up yet again, and rushed into the hospital, barely a word spent to tell Ritchi what was going on, why he was so sick, why he had told her to meet him at the lair and not the hospital like he so obviously needed to go to.

Roxanne found her head filled with questions and she also found that in some cases she was not all that sure she wished to know the answer.

Minion kicked the door open, looking around wildly as he stepped into the waiting room. People froze, stood up, and registered what it was that they were seeing in a single heart-stopping moment. "We need some help over here!" Minion shouted out, his voice desperate, his eyes wide and terrified.

Their eyes focused on Megamind immediately, right when the alien let out a series of body-wracking coughs, and a bit of blood splattered onto his chest. "Sir!" Minion cried out desperately, and that kicked them into high gear. A few nurses ran up, a gurney wheeled to where they stood creakily, Minion placing the alien onto the gurney, voices desperately calling out to one another as they wheeled him from them, away into the depths of the hospital.

The green fish alien, however, was not letting his master and charge out of his sight for a moment and came after them, Roxanne following as well. No one attempted to get in their way.

They wheeled him to a room, transferring him to the bed and began readying equipment. It was only when they reached this stage that they realized they were attempting to fix an alien. Not a human, but an alien. An alien with a very different physiology and makeup to them, and they did not know what to do. They stood silently, eyes widening and fear flitting across their faces before looking over at Roxanne and Minion, uncertainty and apology held in their depths.

This was when an older gray-haired doctor burst into the room and began giving orders with a power and authority that they immediately listened to.

Bags were grabbed and prepped, tubes attached, and various sensory equipment set up, and his pajama top removed. The sight of the thin frail chest as it rose up and down laboriously nearly made Roxanne sob. The doctor shot her a look, but at a glance from Minion ignored them both and continued with his orders. A needle was brought up, a large, sharp and deadly looking needle. He inserted the IV needle into it, pressing it up even with the larger hollow one, and after a moment of attempting to find a vein, inserted the large needle with more force than it seemed he should have had to use. The larger needle was slid out, the wound sealing around the smaller one nearly automatically. He unclipped the large needle and removed it, repeating the process for several other IV drips.

By the time they were done, Megamind had more tubes and wires stuck into him and onto him than Roxanne had ever seen. From the looks of some of the nurses, it was the same thing going through their own minds.

But the heart monitor was steady, an oxygen mask had been put in place, and he didn't look as pained. Roxanne looked up at the doctor when they were finished, her eyes questing and pleading. The nurses continued leaving in a steady stream.

He sighed deeply. "He'll be fine. You got him here quick enough we didn't have to operate, which is lucky for you because then I'd have to insist you get out, and not even an overgrown fish would have stopped me."

"He was coughing up blood…"

"It's not quite as bad for his species as it is for a human. That's not to say that it isn't bad, because it is, it means that his body is resorting to doing whatever it can to get the bacteria out, including getting rid of its own blood supply. If you had left it any longer he would have been bleeding out of every bodily-orifice." The thought made Roxanne go pale.

"I…I thought that you said he wouldn't get sick with that anymore?" Minion asked quietly.

The doctor sighed. "He _shouldn't_ have been able to. But it's like the chickenpox, most of the time they don't get it twice, but there are some anomalies. Megamind was apparently one of those people."

"Like he is in everything else…" Minion sighed.

"Is…is he okay? Will he be alright?"

"He'll be fine. He just needs rest. But who on earth did he get it from? Even though he has a greater amount of contact with people, this would be rather difficult to catch."

"…What…what causes that reaction?"

"What illness, you mean? Gastroenteritis, in other words the stomach flu. He had it as a kid. Trust me, at least you didn't have to watch us try and figure out what it was and how to treat it. It was traumatic enough realizing the size of the needle which was necessary…"

Roxanne didn't hear much past the term 'stomach flu'. Her eyes closed, but she cleared her throat, pressing on.

"Why…why would you have spent so much time on him... He's not exactly human…"

"They left a wonderful donation." The words were blunt, shrugging, and Roxanne had to close her eyes to fight off a wince. "Hey, it's like you said, he's not human. We needed the money and…well…he…" The doctor sighed, ran a hand through his gray hair, and tugged at his coat. "You can stay. Don't worry about waking him, he's been drugged up to his eyeballs in sedatives among other things, he'll be fine."

Roxanne backed up against the wall as soon as he left, her eyes wide, the reporter's façade cracking. Minion watched in worry as she began to sob, sliding down the wall, her head in her hands. Minion crouched down next to her, a hand coming out and touching her shoulder gently.

"Hey, what's wrong? He's fine, he'll be fine…"

"You don't understand, I…I gave that to him! It was my fault, if I had never visited…"

"I know."

Roxanne stopped crying, the shock of it making her stare at him through her fingers. "What?"

"I know, and it's okay. You didn't know, you had no way of knowing. Heck, you heard the doc, he wasn't supposed to be able to catch it again. I'm really sorry, and I know you feel awful, but it really was not your fault. It's okay, Ms. Ritchi, it's okay…"

She looked at him, nodding slowly, only to shake her head and burst into tears again. Minion took that moment to bemoan the fact that he had fewer skills with women than even Megamind had had. He sat next to her and hugged her comfortingly, the fish nuzzling up as close to her in the bowl as he could.

Roxanne eventually cried herself out, the trauma of the day making itself known. Eventually she knew she would have to suck it up, give the report of the day, and then she would come back here, but for the moment she just felt hollow.

She gave her report, Minion had activated the brain-bots, the security provided by them was doubled in case any villain attempted to take over the world on that day. And Megamind was still lying in a bed, dead to the world with too many tubes stuck into him, and an oxygen mask on his face.

Ritchi entered the hospital room quietly, barely able to stand the sympathetic glances that were given to her. She entered the room to find Minion sleeping, his body on a chair next to Megamind's bed, his fish body somewhere deep in the inner confines of the mechanized contraption. Roxanne pulled up another chair on the other side of Megamind's bed, sitting down on it, her fingers lacing through his still gray ones. They weren't blue yet, but he was not as sick looking as he had been.

Somewhere between twelve and one in the morning, Roxanne fell asleep with her head on his chest.

She woke up later, jerking her head up with the feeling that someone else was in the room. She locked eyes with a handsome and built man, his hair shaggy and long, a white shirt and blue jeans clothing him. "Metro Man?" She asked groggily, and the man put his finger to his lips, indicating for her to be quiet.

"I'm sorry, Music Man…" She let go of the fingers that were still in her hand and slowly stood up, stretching as she went. "What are you doing here?"

He was silent, looking over at the body lying there in that bed with eyes that were disbelieving. "Caught your report…I couldn't believe it, so I came… He really is sick…" The last four words were whispered in disbelief.

"It's my fault…I got him sick…" Music Man looked at her with piercing blue eyes. The look was so critical, so judging that she couldn't help but start to cry again, silently cursing herself.

Music Man stiffened, his eyes wide and his expression frozen in a mask of shock. "Ms. Ritchi… Ms. Ritchi, don't cry, I'm sure it wasn't really your fault…really…" He was completely confused and she knew it, she was almost shocked when timid wary arms wrapped around her. He said nothing, and the hug was somehow more platonic and timid than Megamind's ever had been.

She allowed herself to cry into his chest, shocked and rather humiliated at all the crying she was doing. She really couldn't believe it. This was ridiculous. Really and truly ridiculous.

"So…" The voice that broke the silence was weak, raspy, a ghost of its former self, but the two of them turned to it with relief and smiles on their faces. "Are we attempting to take Roxanne away from me, too, my old nemesis?" The voice was somehow teasing, even though he raised a weak eyebrow in question.

Music Man noticed the way his arms were still around Roxanne and jerked back like he had been burned. Roxanne looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "So, am I that revolting?"

"Well, no, it's just, I mean…" He cleared his throat his hand coming up to rub at his neck. Megamind had a weak smile on his face.

"It's alright. She wouldn't go to you anyway." He chuckled weakly, and then began to cough, raspy rattling coughs that made them wince, Roxanne hurrying over and helping him sit upright, rubbing at his back until the coughs began to subside. Music Man looked around awkwardly, finally getting a cup and filling it up, offering it to him. He took it with a slight smile, sipping from it. Music Man's eyes widened and he vanished a second later, and not a moment after that the door opened.

"Is…everything alright?" The young nurse asked, examining the two of them closely, her look of relief at realizing that their hero was alright unacknowledged, but there was no denying that it made Megamind feel special.

"Yes, yes…still a bit under the weather, but all is well." He waved it away, trying for the hero inflection he had been working on. Watching the way she lit up at the attempt made him know he was succeeding.

"You sure you don't need anything else?"

"Not unless you can think of something…"

"No, I suppose you're alright." She went to close the door, and then hesitated. "I wanted to thank you…"

"Oh?"

"You saved my brother's life last week…"

Megamind blinked, and then narrowed his eyes at her. "You're Michael Stratford's sister?"

"Yes! How could you tell?" In her shock she opened the door farther, staring at him in shock. Roxanne remained silent, smiling slightly as she listened. He loved to show off, and if that was what he needed to feel better, she'd allow it. But just this once.

"You share the same high cheekbones, not to mention your earlobe is also the same."

"Are you sure you're not Sherlock Holmes?" She asked teasingly.

Megamind laughed, immediately beginning to cough again. Ms. Stratford hurried into the room, helping to calm the fit.

"Well…that was exciting… I believe you're a hazard to my health, Ms. Stratford." The woman laughed and ducked out calmly after apologizing again, and giving her respects, and thanks before leaving.

"You actually know who they are." The words were startling, Megamind jumping, letting out a soundless scream as the needles tugged into his flesh. Roxanne was honestly surprised they hadn't broken, and the thought of the needles stuck into him made her shudder.

"Oh, ouch…I'm sorry…really, are you alright?"

Megamind had his eyes closed tightly, a tight smile on his face as he nodded his head, "Never better!" he hissed out between clenched teeth.

"Well…I'm glad you're getting better. I'm sorry. I'll go now. Good luck you two. Megamind…" Music Man paused, cleared his throat and then gave him a small smile and a nod. "You're doing great."

"Thank you…"

And with that he was gone.

Megamind gave a yawn, Roxanne smiling at him and lacing her fingers through his once again. "So, shall we sleep through the rest of the morning?"

"Sounds like a wonderful plan…"

So they did.

They also greatly enjoyed the look on Minion's face when he realized that his charge had had a coughing fit twice, and been visited by Music Man, all without him noticing a thing. Finally Megamind regained his proper coloring, and went back to his job with increased gusto. Life went back to normal, slowly but surely.

And if people spent a bit more time being sure that the blue alien understood that he was appreciated…Megamind certainly wasn't complaining.


End file.
